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Automakers Working on Car-to-Car Ad-Hoc Networks
LouCifer writes "The Register is reporting that BMW, Audi, Daimler Chrysler, Volkswagen, Renault and Fiat are working with a German government grant to help develop a standard method for car-to-car wireless networking dubbed 'NOW' (Network On Wheels). NOW is based on 802.11 and IPv6 to allow inter-vehicle communication based on ad-hoc networking to share traffic information. With routing capabilities, the hope is the vehicles will be able to warn each other - and the drivers - about bad weather, accidents and road problems. A prototype is expected by mid-2005 with field trials to start late Q1 2006."
Imagine if this technology were built into large parking lots, so you would know upon entering where the nearest parking place was that did not have a likely parker approaching ahead of you...
The CB App. What's your 20?
Great. As if cell phones are not a big enough distraction, now we'll have to contend with drivers downloading mp3s, rolling game rooms and drive-by hackings.
While I have only seen commercials for the Acura RL it has the technology already built in. However the RL is getting the traffic information from those funny solar pannels on the sides of the road. It is actually pretty slick because the RL uses XM radio as the delivery method for the traffic information provided by Traffic.com. This is already a multi-million dollar project funded by the US Government.
I can see it now - speed signs that get telemetry directly from the car and issues a ticket when you are going over the limit.
I think something cool would be a HUD for every window. Like the HUD you see in flight sim games where other 'ships' are shown as dots or squares or some sort. Then you could set it to show you the 'name' of every vehicle (which you set as you get in) and the speed and relative distance of each vehicle. This would be especially useful in snowy, foggy or rainy weather where visibility is limited.
You could have the option to toggle what you see as well.
Oh, and add "you got a headlight out" and "dude, this is a 4 way stop sign corner, and it's YOUR TURN." and "Watch out...biker on probably the worst road for biking ahead!" (I'm a biker myself, and there's just some roads you don't bike on due to a lack of shoulder and heavy/fast traffic volume.)
I've wanted a "reverse honk" for a while to get rid of the tailgaters (and it's not like I'm a slowpoke myself...if they tailgate me there's something wrong with them because I'm going as fast as I can without getting an insta-ticket the next squad car I pass). Maybe this will serve the purpose? Without having to rig something weird hanging out of your car's rear end?
[It's called CAN] and like I2C, its been around for ages.
You are mistaken about CAN. You either didn't read the article too closely or you have no friggin clue what CAN is. Probably the latter given your incoherent off-topic rant about Linux (WTF?).
CAN stands for Controller-Area-Network. It is not limited to use in automotive applications--it is a widely used technology for industrial automation (intelligent devices that use the open communications standard called DeviceNet). In and of itself it provides no wireless functionality, ad-hoc configuration and doesn't use the IPv6 protocol (or IPvANYTHING--it uses CIP). In automobiles, it is used by electronics systems to communicate with and control various systems. The diagnostic port on mostly European cars is handled by CAN chips.
It cannot communicate at speeds over 1 megabit per second, and it cannot communicate outside of the automobile or local control system network without extra help. OTOH unlike ethernet it is fully deterministic and has reliability mechanisms at the hardware level (that is, it guarantees data packets arrive when you want them, in the correct order).
This new thing has NOTHING AT ALL to do with CAN...it looks more like "Rendezvous for Cars" and looks very interesting indeed. Of course, with all the exciting useful things comes potential abuses (mis-applied, could Big Brother monitor and collect data about your driving behaviour? Photo radar is bad enough already).
Eastern Standard Tribe Aparrently instead of paying a toll for the New Jersey Turnpike, one downloads music, then pays for it at the gate. Don't ask me tho...
Try this: http://www.roadragecards.com/samples.htm Rather convenient communications and the information travels at the speed of light. Booya.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
It's a shame this hasn't been more widely adopted because it has major benefits on conjested freeways. They did a study in the UK a few years ago that showed why conjestion occurred on the M25 - a notoriously busy ring road around London. When a road starts to get crowded, anyone who overreacts when breaking causes a chain reaction behind them. So one vehicle slowing down a bit too much causes the next to do the same and so on until traffic stops completely. Active cruise control should stop this because cars on a freeway will space themselves out evenly and not overcompensate when they slow down.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there